Don't tell us, tell him. That he has them for friends isn't any big deal (professional context? extended family?) but I don't get that he's out with you but taking a beast home. You're the one he should've taken home; the beast is the one who needed the fucking taxi (which he could have paid for if he really was or felt obliged). On the plus side, he clearly wasn't just there expecting you to put out in exchange for a meal (which you covered, anyway).

You don't need to apologize. On the contrary, you need to demand your money back and that the fucker be fired for theft.

You couldn't have physically harmed her with the hot sauce. It felt bad but there was no poisoning. Acute toxicity requires consumption of around 2% of body mass, meaning a person weighing "only" 200 lb. would need to eat some 4 lb. of powdered ghost peppers to risk shuffling off this mortal coil.

The Daily Hate Mail is hardly a credible source. I've checked the actual campground site and no such ban exists. There is a potential problem and the campground members are the ones who brought it up, pointing out that perhaps building a refugee home for Middle Easterners right on land which has been used by nudists for more than 100 years wasn't such a clever idea. They requested the local government pay for a screen to block the view (covering 11 hectares) in order to avoid such potential problems but no money's coming.

If someone's so stupid or willfully ignorant that they believe in "starvation mode"

There was a time you could be fairly certain of this condition, but unfortunately, they've been quite successful at spreading this particular bit of nonsense through constant reeeeee-petition that the phrase "starvation mode" is appearing in credible outlets. Worse, it's not even an exceptional usage but so commonplace that it's not only never defined, there's absolutely no discussion about potential definition. Those who are unfamiliar with it are often considered the ignorant and this works very well for their cause. Those goalposts don't just move, they can change the scoring method and even the game itself.

There aren't studies on this because it's illogical. The only way to fight it is to engage, which means getting them to stick around long enough in the conversation to hit a point of self-realization. In this case I find it best to play dumb and interested. It also means avoiding the slam dunk responses like "So why wasn't Dachau full of butterbeasts?".

"What do you mean, 'starvation mode'?"

"How would that work? I've never seen any study that showed that."

"I wouldn't want people to starve but couldn't that be used to end world hunger?"

"But there weren't any overweight people liberated from the Yugoslavian POW camps only 20 years ago."

And so on. Make the shit as preposterous as you can (it kinda has to be) because no matter what kind of stupid you manage to come up with, by god those fucking monsters will say something even more outrageous.